March 2011 - Esug-list - lists.esug.org

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Helge Nowak

Janko and ariliquin: very well said! The original poster's intention was to create a Smalltalk based CMS as successful as the leading open source ones. This can only be reached by making the system easily accessible to end users, not developers. Developers are a minority. They don't decide on what will be used as an end user tool in companies, organizations and communities. If we think Pier and Scribo shall be end user tools they need end user UIs. If we don't think so we have to accept the fact that their target audience is the Smalltalk fraction of the developer community. As Ralph said: marketing is thinking about your market first and then build, advertize and distribute your offfering to your target segment's needs and expectations. And don't forget your return on investment! Without ROI people will soon leave because no-one can afford to just spend. My 2 € Cents Helge ________________________________ Von: Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si> An: ESUG Mailing list <esug-list(a)lists.esug.org> Gesendet: Montag, den 21. März 2011, 0:02:48 Uhr Betreff: Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ... Well said, thanks! I also beleive that a right way to the average "CMS user" friendly CMS is to hide Smalltalk as long as possible, until user is encouraged enough to customize his website in depth. And in this customization is where we actually have an advantage over others. But, we need to build that non-Smalltalk front part first. There is no way to skip that part. Best regards Janko On 20. 03. 2011 23:49, ariliquin wrote: > I am a smalltalk newbie and interested in Smalltalk CMS. In answer to your > question, from my point of view, I would like to say: > > 1. The ability to achieve something functional, say a my own custom main > page, quickly and easily, is very encouraging (I haven't even begun to be > able to do this in Pier etc, I am still wading through the concepts that are > being presented, as opposed to the functionality that is made easily > accessible). > > 2. The CMS is built on top of the Smalltalk platform, both an advantage for > obvious reasons, yet a big disadvantage for this reason, from my point of > view: I have to be familiar with Smalltalk BEFORE I can even approach the > CMS. I don't mean familiar with the finer details and vast libraries, I mean > familiar with the main screen and how to simple navigate, what the concepts > are, the terminologies etc etc etc etc. NO other CMS requires this as > obviously as Pier. The Smalltalk interface is NOT intuitive. I am not spoon > feed everything. I have to research and digest and understand and grow to be > able to do anything here. Yes, there are many simple concepts, however my > experience was, upon seeing the Smalltalk environment in its totality, was > to be completely lost. > > 3. Every other CMS like Wordpress, Concrete 5, Joomla are designed to > present a user interface, not a programmer interface. Hence they are > attractive to users immediately, in general. Yes a programmer can delve in > and do things, but a user can get things they want done, point and click. > (Although some of the interfaces can be overwhelming with navigations etc, > also). > > If you want a SmallTalk CMS that is Amazingly Attractive to End users and > Programmers, this would be a good start for me: > > Provide a USER interface that can be used to quickly produce publishable > content (a lot of work, as many have pointed out, yet achieved by many other > CMS projects) > > Provide an underlying Programmer interface that gives simple and powerful > access to the framework to allow extension and manipulation of the system > (already there) > > Identify the STRENGTHS of smalltalk, LEVERAGE these and present these, in a > simple and meaningful way, to End USERS and programmers, to create a CMS > with capabilities that others cannot match easily and that is Attractive > because of its inherent nature and abilities. > > Provide Tutorials, Video How-To's and Documentation from Within the CMS. > This is were I am wondering how to do things, this should be were I find the > answers also. -- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si _______________________________________________ Esug-list mailing list Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org

March 21, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Joachim Tuchel

March 21, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Janko Mivšek

Well said, thanks! I also beleive that a right way to the average "CMS user" friendly CMS is to hide Smalltalk as long as possible, until user is encouraged enough to customize his website in depth. And in this customization is where we actually have an advantage over others. But, we need to build that non-Smalltalk front part first. There is no way to skip that part. Best regards Janko On 20. 03. 2011 23:49, ariliquin wrote: > I am a smalltalk newbie and interested in Smalltalk CMS. In answer to your > question, from my point of view, I would like to say: > > 1. The ability to achieve something functional, say a my own custom main > page, quickly and easily, is very encouraging (I haven't even begun to be > able to do this in Pier etc, I am still wading through the concepts that are > being presented, as opposed to the functionality that is made easily > accessible). > > 2. The CMS is built on top of the Smalltalk platform, both an advantage for > obvious reasons, yet a big disadvantage for this reason, from my point of > view: I have to be familiar with Smalltalk BEFORE I can even approach the > CMS. I don't mean familiar with the finer details and vast libraries, I mean > familiar with the main screen and how to simple navigate, what the concepts > are, the terminologies etc etc etc etc. NO other CMS requires this as > obviously as Pier. The Smalltalk interface is NOT intuitive. I am not spoon > feed everything. I have to research and digest and understand and grow to be > able to do anything here. Yes, there are many simple concepts, however my > experience was, upon seeing the Smalltalk environment in its totality, was > to be completely lost. > > 3. Every other CMS like Wordpress, Concrete 5, Joomla are designed to > present a user interface, not a programmer interface. Hence they are > attractive to users immediately, in general. Yes a programmer can delve in > and do things, but a user can get things they want done, point and click. > (Although some of the interfaces can be overwhelming with navigations etc, > also). > > If you want a SmallTalk CMS that is Amazingly Attractive to End users and > Programmers, this would be a good start for me: > > Provide a USER interface that can be used to quickly produce publishable > content (a lot of work, as many have pointed out, yet achieved by many other > CMS projects) > > Provide an underlying Programmer interface that gives simple and powerful > access to the framework to allow extension and manipulation of the system > (already there) > > Identify the STRENGTHS of smalltalk, LEVERAGE these and present these, in a > simple and meaningful way, to End USERS and programmers, to create a CMS > with capabilities that others cannot match easily and that is Attractive > because of its inherent nature and abilities. > > Provide Tutorials, Video How-To's and Documentation from Within the CMS. > This is were I am wondering how to do things, this should be were I find the > answers also. -- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si

March 20, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by ariliquin

I am a smalltalk newbie and interested in Smalltalk CMS. In answer to your question, from my point of view, I would like to say: 1. The ability to achieve something functional, say a my own custom main page, quickly and easily, is very encouraging (I haven't even begun to be able to do this in Pier etc, I am still wading through the concepts that are being presented, as opposed to the functionality that is made easily accessible). 2. The CMS is built on top of the Smalltalk platform, both an advantage for obvious reasons, yet a big disadvantage for this reason, from my point of view: I have to be familiar with Smalltalk BEFORE I can even approach the CMS. I don't mean familiar with the finer details and vast libraries, I mean familiar with the main screen and how to simple navigate, what the concepts are, the terminologies etc etc etc etc. NO other CMS requires this as obviously as Pier. The Smalltalk interface is NOT intuitive. I am not spoon feed everything. I have to research and digest and understand and grow to be able to do anything here. Yes, there are many simple concepts, however my experience was, upon seeing the Smalltalk environment in its totality, was to be completely lost. 3. Every other CMS like Wordpress, Concrete 5, Joomla are designed to present a user interface, not a programmer interface. Hence they are attractive to users immediately, in general. Yes a programmer can delve in and do things, but a user can get things they want done, point and click. (Although some of the interfaces can be overwhelming with navigations etc, also). If you want a SmallTalk CMS that is Amazingly Attractive to End users and Programmers, this would be a good start for me: Provide a USER interface that can be used to quickly produce publishable content (a lot of work, as many have pointed out, yet achieved by many other CMS projects) Provide an underlying Programmer interface that gives simple and powerful access to the framework to allow extension and manipulation of the system (already there) Identify the STRENGTHS of smalltalk, LEVERAGE these and present these, in a simple and meaningful way, to End USERS and programmers, to create a CMS with capabilities that others cannot match easily and that is Attractive because of its inherent nature and abilities. Provide Tutorials, Video How-To's and Documentation from Within the CMS. This is were I am wondering how to do things, this should be were I find the answers also. -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Smalltalk-hosting-tp3384077p3392147.html Sent from the ESUG mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

March 20, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Sean Allen

I dont believe anyone said that Pier was bad. I think they said it wasn't newbie friendly because of the lack of documentation. On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 4:35 AM, Tudor Girba <tudor.girba(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I believe that Alex wanted to say that the basic functionalities should be so self evident that they should not need documentation. > > Regarding Pier, Lukas did an excellent job of building a content management system for programmers. You would not say about Seaside for example that it is bad because you cannot program it with drag and drop. It is the same for Pier. The main focus was to get it beautiful from a model point of view. > > To add a user-friendly interface on top of it would require an explicit and new project on top of Pier. The infrastructure is there and is powerful. > > Cheers, > Doru > > > On 19 Mar 2011, at 21:48, Sean Allen wrote: > >> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Alexandre Bergel <abergel(a)dcc.uchile.cl> wrote: >>>> 2) Yes. I have used and ported Pier, and presented it to non-Smalltalkers, and I have noticed that very small how-to or clarification things could delay me and would undoubtedly affect a non-Smalltalk user. (Some of it was just order of presentation - the how-to's that a non-Smalltalker wants first are not too hard to find - if you're a Smalltalker and so can guess where to look.) It would be good to watch people starting to use Smalltalk's 'best-practice' web suite and see what's slowing them. >>> >>> There is no need of how-to's for Pier for basic usage (e.g., editing pages, adding menus, doing internal links, adding users). It is wrong to think this is necessary. I have never read the documentation of SimpleCMS, simply there isn't and there is no need to. >>> >> >> You are apparently much smarter than I. I struggled mightly w/ getting >> going with Pier and finally gave up and moved on to other things. >> I doubt I'm an outlier on that. I'd love if there was much better >> documentation but, I'm definitely not the person to do it as I still >> don't really >> get how to work with Pier. It is very non-intuitive for me. >> >> Even if it is dirt simple to use, people are going to look at recipes, >> how-tos and general documentation when picking a CMS. >> Most people pick a CMS to make things easier not because they think 'o >> i really want to use X language'. >> >> -Sean- >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Esug-list mailing list >> Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org >> http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > > -- > www.tudorgirba.com > > "Reasonable is what we are accustomed with." > >

March 20, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Reza Razavi

At 10:59 17/03/2011, Geert Claes wrote: >Question is; what can be done to have more Smalltalkers use a Smalltalk >based blog system and attract non-Smalltalkers to try a Smalltalk CMS? CMS is not necessarily the best market for Smalltalk. But, there are application areas where: (a) having a CMS as an integrated component of the whole application software is a major added-value, and (b) the application area is complex and dynamic enough to motivate using Smalltalk as implementation language. An example of such application area is cloud-based provisioning of individualized and adaptive services to the elderly (information, monitoring, networking, etc). This objective is extremely hard to achieve in an affordable, acceptable and reliable way. In spite of huge investments, it remains a major open area of research and development. However, as argued previously [1, 2, 3], it is possible to address it to a large extent by a combination of Smalltalk-based solutions, including a CMS (Pier). So, an alternative approach to develop Smalltalk is extending its application areas (far) beyond what is possible with competing, and much better documented and marketed, languages. This is actually why we specifically invest in the above mentioned area (ambient assisted living), and would very welcome interested parties for technical, commercial, and scientific collaborations. Cheers, Reza Razavi [1] <http://www.rezarazavi.com/about/cv/publications/pppo-2011>http://www.rezarazavi.com/about/cv/publications/pppo-2011 [2] http://www.rezarazavi.com/about/cv/publications/iwst-2010 [3] <http://osl.cs.uiuc.edu/people?user=razavi>http://osl.cs.uiuc.edu/people?user=razavi

March 20, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Reza Razavi

At 09:35 20/03/2011, Tudor Girba wrote: >a content management system for programmers. Exact. This is actually why I chose Pier for implementing my software platform for "online programmable CMS" [1]. During the past two years, I've been deeply extending Pier and never regretted my choice. As a matter of fact, Pier comes with a powerful CMS model. >To add a user-friendly interface on top of it would require an >explicit and new project on top of Pier. The infrastructure is there >and is powerful. Exactly, and it's feasible since: (a) Pier offers appropriate abstractions for plugging rather easily application-specific interfaces. (b) Seaside offers powerful tools, e.g. JQuery, for implementing such interfaces. For example, I've rather easily implemented on this basis several sophisticated interfaces [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Actually, all of them reuse a "home-made" framework for interactive hierarchical interfaces that uses Seaside-JQuery. Cheers, Reza [1] <http://www.afacms.com/blog/pontoon-app>http://www.afacms.com/blog/pontoon-app [2] http://www.afacms.com/blog [3] http://www.afacms.com/cats/contracts/ [4] http://www.afacms.com/cats/concepts/ [5] http://www.afacms.com/cats/activities/ [6] <http://www.afacms.com/cats/activities/shopping/Seaside/>http://www.afacms.com/cats/activities/shopping/Seaside/

March 20, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Alexandre Bergel

+1 Alexandre On 20 Mar 2011, at 04:35, Tudor Girba wrote: > I believe that Alex wanted to say that the basic functionalities should be so self evident that they should not need documentation. > > Regarding Pier, Lukas did an excellent job of building a content management system for programmers. You would not say about Seaside for example that it is bad because you cannot program it with drag and drop. It is the same for Pier. The main focus was to get it beautiful from a model point of view. > > To add a user-friendly interface on top of it would require an explicit and new project on top of Pier. The infrastructure is there and is powerful. > > Cheers, > Doru > > > On 19 Mar 2011, at 21:48, Sean Allen wrote: > >> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Alexandre Bergel <abergel(a)dcc.uchile.cl> wrote: >>>> 2) Yes. I have used and ported Pier, and presented it to non-Smalltalkers, and I have noticed that very small how-to or clarification things could delay me and would undoubtedly affect a non-Smalltalk user. (Some of it was just order of presentation - the how-to's that a non-Smalltalker wants first are not too hard to find - if you're a Smalltalker and so can guess where to look.) It would be good to watch people starting to use Smalltalk's 'best-practice' web suite and see what's slowing them. >>> >>> There is no need of how-to's for Pier for basic usage (e.g., editing pages, adding menus, doing internal links, adding users). It is wrong to think this is necessary. I have never read the documentation of SimpleCMS, simply there isn't and there is no need to. >>> >> >> You are apparently much smarter than I. I struggled mightly w/ getting >> going with Pier and finally gave up and moved on to other things. >> I doubt I'm an outlier on that. I'd love if there was much better >> documentation but, I'm definitely not the person to do it as I still >> don't really >> get how to work with Pier. It is very non-intuitive for me. >> >> Even if it is dirt simple to use, people are going to look at recipes, >> how-tos and general documentation when picking a CMS. >> Most people pick a CMS to make things easier not because they think 'o >> i really want to use X language'. >> >> -Sean- >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Esug-list mailing list >> Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org >> http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > > -- > www.tudorgirba.com > > "Reasonable is what we are accustomed with." > > -- _,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;: Alexandre Bergel http://www.bergel.eu ^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;.

March 20, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Niall Ross

Dear Joachim, and to continue/review at ESUG in workshop or similar, as I suggested in an earlier post? While no doubt some things may benefit from further coding or elaborate documentation, others may need no more than Pier experts helping Pier dummies get started, accompanied by someone noting what the FAQs are, debriefing, and tweaking the existing explanations. > maybe that's an idea for GSoC? > > Am 20.03.11 09:35, schrieb Tudor Girba: > >> I believe that Alex wanted to say that the basic functionalities >> should be so self evident that they should not need documentation. >> >> Regarding Pier, Lukas did an excellent job of building a content >> management system for programmers. You would not say about Seaside >> for example that it is bad because you cannot program it with drag >> and drop. It is the same for Pier. The main focus was to get it >> beautiful from a model point of view. >> >> To add a user-friendly interface on top of it would require an >> explicit and new project on top of Pier. The infrastructure is there >> and is powerful. > Yours faithfully Niall Ross ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________

March 20, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Norbert Hartl

Am 20.03.2011 um 09:35 schrieb Tudor Girba: > I believe that Alex wanted to say that the basic functionalities should be so self evident that they should not need documentation. > > Regarding Pier, Lukas did an excellent job of building a content management system for programmers. You would not say about Seaside for example that it is bad because you cannot program it with drag and drop. It is the same for Pier. The main focus was to get it beautiful from a model point of view. > > To add a user-friendly interface on top of it would require an explicit and new project on top of Pier. The infrastructure is there and is powerful. > Yes, basically everything is there. I tried to push some of my friends to use it. Everyone said that it is not easy to use but they also said that wordpress is not easy to use. That does not seem to be the problem. After I explained it a bit most of them founnd it more clear and more easy than other CMSses. So I think we shouldn't be too hard to ourselves. For all of them the bunch of links at the bottom was too disturbing to work with. Well, I have troubles to find the right link because there are so much of them in one place. So reducing the links to the necessary ones (for a normal user) and re-design the functionality sections commands, view and sitemap will do it a big deal. And well, there was one single point everybody mentioned and that seemed to be to biggest problem for them. Everyone was asking if there are "themes" or "templates" you can chose from. Just to repeat it no one had real technical problems with the system but they expect they can chose a template (they are as good in design as they are good in programming) which looks good and start with a half pre filled page. That seems to be the success story for wordpress. And the default theme of pier is only appealing to purists. So to marketeer pier I would go the ui way. Add support for 960.cs css framework (pier uses blueprint but a lot of people are more fond of 960.cs like me :) ). Then the command links of pier need to be layouted with bigger coloured areas (that have round corners :) ). Care should be taken that the pier look does not interefere with a template css. The links shouldn't be at the bottom. A comfortable sitemap component will help also. In my opinion that is not too much work but one that helps a lot. I would expect with these changes the hosting question would be important to me because all of friends would want to have one :) my 2 cents, Norbert > > > On 19 Mar 2011, at 21:48, Sean Allen wrote: > >> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Alexandre Bergel <abergel(a)dcc.uchile.cl> wrote: >>>> 2) Yes. I have used and ported Pier, and presented it to non-Smalltalkers, and I have noticed that very small how-to or clarification things could delay me and would undoubtedly affect a non-Smalltalk user. (Some of it was just order of presentation - the how-to's that a non-Smalltalker wants first are not too hard to find - if you're a Smalltalker and so can guess where to look.) It would be good to watch people starting to use Smalltalk's 'best-practice' web suite and see what's slowing them. >>> >>> There is no need of how-to's for Pier for basic usage (e.g., editing pages, adding menus, doing internal links, adding users). It is wrong to think this is necessary. I have never read the documentation of SimpleCMS, simply there isn't and there is no need to. >>> >> >> You are apparently much smarter than I. I struggled mightly w/ getting >> going with Pier and finally gave up and moved on to other things. >> I doubt I'm an outlier on that. I'd love if there was much better >> documentation but, I'm definitely not the person to do it as I still >> don't really >> get how to work with Pier. It is very non-intuitive for me. >> >> Even if it is dirt simple to use, people are going to look at recipes, >> how-tos and general documentation when picking a CMS. >> Most people pick a CMS to make things easier not because they think 'o >> i really want to use X language'. >> >> -Sean- >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Esug-list mailing list >> Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org >> http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > > -- > www.tudorgirba.com > > "Reasonable is what we are accustomed with." > > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org

March 20, 2011